Deja Dead Page 0,93

default, back to Pete, and I felt a familiar flutter in my stomach. Remember the tingling skin, the pounding blood, the warm wetness between my legs. Yes, there had been passion. You’re just horny, Brennan. I took another bite of my sandwich.

The other Pete. The nights of anger. The arguments. The dinners alone. The cold shroud of resentment that had smothered the lust. I took a swig of Coke. Why was I thinking about Pete so often? If we had a chance to do it all again . . . Thanks, Ms. Streisand.

Relaxation therapy wasn’t working. I reread Lucie’s printout, careful not to drip mustard on it. I reviewed the list on page three, trying to read the items Lucie had crossed out, but her pencil marks obscured the letters. Out of curiosity, I erased each of her lines and read the entries. Two cases involved bodies stuffed into barrels then doused with acid. A new twist on the ever-popular drug burn.

The third item puzzled me. Its LML number indicated a 1990 case, and that Pelletier had been the pathologist. No coroner was listed. In the name field it read: Singe. The data fields for date of birth, date of autopsy, and cause of death were empty. The entry “démembrement/postmortem” had prompted the computer to include the case in Lucie’s list.

Finishing the croissant, I went to the central files and pulled the jacket. It contained only three items: a police incident report, a one-page opinion by the pathologist, and an envelope of photographs. I thumbed through the pictures, read the reports, then went in search of Pelletier.

“Got a minute?” I said to his hunched back.

He turned from the microscope, glasses in one hand, pen in the other. “Come in, come in,” he urged, sliding the bifocals onto his face.

My office had a window; his had space. He strode across it and gestured to one of two chairs flanking a low table in front of his desk. Reaching into his lab coat, he withdrew a pack of du Maurier’s and extended it to me. I shook my head. We’d been through the ritual a thousand times. He knew I didn’t smoke, but would always offer. Like Claudel, Pelletier was set in his ways.

“What can I help you with?” he said, lighting up.

“I’m curious about an old case of yours. Goes back to 1990.”

“Ah, Mon Dieu, can I remember that far back? I can barely remember my own address sometimes.” He leaned forward, cupped his mouth, and looked conspiratorial. “I write it on matchbooks, just in case.”

We both laughed. “Dr. Pelletier, I think you remember just about everything you want to remember.”

He shrugged and wagged his head, all innocence.

“Anyway, I brought the file.” I held it up, then opened it. “Police report says the remains were found in a gym bag behind the Voyageur bus station. Wino opened it, thinking maybe he could find the owner.”

“Right,” said Pelletier. “Honest rubbies are so common they should form their own fraternal organization.”

“Anyway, he didn’t like the aroma. Said”—I skimmed the incident report to find the exact phrase—“‘the smell of Satan rose up out of the bag and surrounded my soul.’ Unquote.”

“A poet. I like that,” said Pelletier. “Wonder what he’d say about my shorts.”

I ignored that and read on. “He took the bag to a janitor, who called the police. They found a collection of body parts wrapped up in some sort of tablecloth.”

“Ah, oui. I remember that one,” he said, pointing a yellowed finger at me. “Grisly. Horrible.” He had that look.

“Dr. Pelletier?”

“The case of the terminal monkey.”

“Then I read your report correctly?”

He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“It really was a monkey?”

He nodded gravely. “Capucin.”

“Why did it come here?”

“Dead.”

“Yes.” Everyone’s a comedian. “But why a coroner case?”

The look on my face must have prompted a straight answer. “Whatever was in there was small, and someone had skinned it and cut it up. Hell, it could have been anything. Cops thought it might be a fetus or a neonate, so they sent it to us.”

“Was there anything odd about the case?” I wasn’t sure what I was looking for.

“Nah. Just another sliced-up monkey.” The corners of his mouth twitched slightly.

“Right.” Dumb question. “Anything strike you about the way the monkey was cut up?”

“Not really. These monkey dismemberments are all the same.”

This was going nowhere.

“Did you ever find out whose monkey it was?”

“Actually, we did. A blurb appeared in the paper, and some guy called from the university.”

“UQAM?”

“Yeah, I think so. A biologist or zoologist or